


as stars wait to fall (in love)

by amatchforyourmadness



Series: and a witcher's heart in a bard's grasp [3]
Category: Stardust (2007), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stardust Fusion, BAMF Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon Ships It, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, F/F, F/M, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Inspired by Stardust, Jaskier | Dandelion Being a Feral Bastard, M/M, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Star!Jaskier, Tired Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:29:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23589190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amatchforyourmadness/pseuds/amatchforyourmadness
Summary: “Here’s what Geralt was looking for: a space rock for one of Yennefer’s potions. Here’s what he finds: the girl Destiny-bound to him and a man dressed in flashy clothing that throws a handful of mud at his face.”In which Yennefer asks for a favor that leads to Geralt getting stuck with a feral star, which just happens to be adored by a little girl in a blue cape and hunted for the youth-granting delicacy that is his heart.(Stardust AU)
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: and a witcher's heart in a bard's grasp [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1745932
Comments: 18
Kudos: 168





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> god dammit, here we go again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So you'll do it then?” She had asked, eagerly, and smiling bright and just this side of looking like she was about to drag him into shit.
> 
> He had blinked confusedly.
> 
> "Hm?”
> 
> "The star.” The mage says, smile dying immediately as she figures out he had not paid attention to most if not all of what she had said. He almost feels guilty, but she still looks like she's about to drag him into shit. “The one that fell. You'll find it for me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very proud of my feral, pissed off Jaskier and I think all my fics will have him and Ciri being stuck to one another

It's all Yennefer's fault, really, as usual.

He had been listening, but not quite. It was a habit, really, because Yennefer could either talk at length about matters of most value and importance, worthy of the most deep and thoughtful inquiries, or complain about a person of a place that was either a bitch or an asshole and several offenses she had endured bravely and his mind would wonder to when was the last time he had given Roach an apple, because she was starting to act out on him. By the end of her lengthy talk, he had been nodding thoughtfully while thinking how likely was he to find apples on the kitchen of the — What had it been this time? An Earl? — whoever's castle Yennefer now had influenced into her hold in his way out in the morning.

“So you'll do it then?” She had asked, eagerly, and smiling bright and just this side of looking like she was about to drag him into shit.

He had blinked confusedly.

"Hm?”

"The star.” The mage says, smile dying immediately as she figures out he had not paid attention to most if not all of what she had said. He almost feels guilty, but she still looks like she's about to drag him into shit. “The one that fell. You'll find it for me?"

"Hm…"

He tries to wither out of it, he really does. He asks her to consider one might have taken it, or animals might have brushed it away or simple things like rain and wind could have easily moved it and he had a child surprise to look for, by her own threat no least, whose life was very much endangered in the current context they find themselves in, two months from the fall of Cintra, and it's stupid to think that a bit of stardust might be so powerful and dangerous that it needs to be stolen away before the Empire gets their hands on it, but Yennefer had given him no room to ask and no room to talk back, pressing the matter as of utmost urgency.

As always, no one has ever won a battle against Yennefer, not of wits and not of any other kind.

“Just go out there and get me the star or I'll hire someone else that will!”

And that had been it.

  
  


┈━═☆

  
  


Now it has been at least a week if not two since the star fell, and Geralt is not sure if he has any luck on finding a rock in the ground so long after it fell. He follows the directions in which Yennefer says the star might have fallen, and does so with no small amount of complaining to Roach. He certainly is not interested in space rock and the matter of urgency has rather led him away from the Path, from good coin and beast-slaying.

He finds a small village at the edge of Brugge creatively entitled Wall in honour of its one grandiose feature, and they say that not far from there, where the remains of their country meet Sodden and Temeria, there had been a great impact, so strong it had shook the small stone wall at the edge of the village and loosened a few of the stones from their places, and that the impact had been followed by a brilliant ball of fire that had been the end of a good deal of the forest there, trees reduced to smoking rests of logs.

That has him about ready to go, but then there's the talk of silly horror stories told amongst the children — the unruly boys that had ran to quell their curiosity instead of listening to their parent's warnings — about a monster inside a crater in the ground, that had shone at night as if he was made of light and groaned in pain, grunting 'help me, help me' until he lured a girl, equally as strange and disobedient for being out at the woods at that hour, until she slid into the crater, the glow had died down and she had not climbed out again.

Unruly boys were also cowardly boys, by nature, no matter how curious. They ran back home instead of being made the next snack.

Geralt lifts himself onto Roach's saddle and rides to where the smell of burned wood still lingers.

┈━═☆

  
  


As soon as he steps past the burned trees, Roach's reigns in his hands and the mare close to his side, he can't say he's not impressed by the destruction. He walks around the crater, taking in the damage a bit of space rock can do. The earth nearer to the edge of the crater is still burned, and he looks for a way down as much as he looks for a hint of the stone inside it.

He stops, glancing to the trees and Roach's ears twitch the same direction. He looks at her as if to ask for her opinion before following the sound of shuffling feet back into the woods, atent to the smallest sounds. He can hear whispering, an urgent discussion being spoken in half-voices, and he takes large steps towards them until he finally finds the origin of it.

He frowns at the girl, small and pale, with green eyes and ashen blond hair, wrapped around a deep blue cape staring at him, weaponless buy somehow still fierce. Geralt opens his mouth, ready to question who the fuck was her, and it's in barely a second he regrets it, when he is hit with a clump of burned earth and tiny rocks on the face and some of the vile mixture hits him square in the face.

“Go, Fiona, run!” Hisses the voice of what no doubt is a man that probably had been hidden behind her.

“I'm not leaving you here with him!"

“I won’t hurt either of you.” Geralt says, raising his hand in front of him, trying to placate the wrath of whatever gremlin was sharing the woods with the blonde kid who had very much not been eaten by any sort of monster. 

“Don't touch her!” The man hisses when he stumbles ever so closely to their chatter and before he knows it, someone is _biting_ his arm.

“Fuck!" He curses, stepping back to get his arm free and hitting his back against Roach in the process, only to be hit by get another clod thrown at him and his mare. “Hey, don’t throw mud at my horse!”

“Just go away and leave us alone!”

“I'm looking for a star! Tell me where to find it and I'll leave you alone, it must have fallen somewhere around here—” He blinks away the mud, wiping the remains of dirt to his eyes before he finally gets a good look at his attacker, sprawled on the ground with his left leg in a weird angle, heaving profusely. “Why are you sitting there like that?"

“He broke his leg.” The girl informs, trying to pull the man upright again. Maybe he's her uncle, or her cousin. Maybe they've been attacked. That would explain the hostility.

“I am looking for a star.” He states again. “It fell around here.”

“Yes, and I broke my leg, you idiot.” Curses the man once more, and the little girl can't help but give him a look that's half annoyed and half wondering what of the situation he's not getting. Geralt must say, he does not get most of it, and frowns. He can see his leg is broken, and he might be inclined to help if it doesn't earn him another handful of earth to be thrown at him, but he doesn't see what that has to do with the star. “I broke my leg _when I fell_. There, is that clear enough for you?”

It takes him yet a moment, before the pieces adjust themselves into his mind and he raises his brows.

“You’re the star?”

“And you're a clodpoll.” That's not an answer, but Geralt supposed that he did spell it out to what the star considers his own limit, and now there's nothing to give voice to but enraged curses. “And a horse's ass, a ninny, a numbskull, a lackwit and a coxcomb and a— what the fuck are you trying me for, you bastard?!” He says, laying a good kick to Geralt's gut with his good leg as Geralt pulls his arm and binds his wrist with the light silver links Yennefer had provided him, backing away before he could get his shoulder bitten too — the man was like a wild animal. “What’s this?” The man says, shaking his wrist to take in the glittering silver chain at the same time his charge asks:

“What do you think you are doing?” The girl has been sparked into action once more by righteous fury, pushing Geralt away (and he lets her, even though she can't do more than tickle him), but that doesn't make him any more inclined to let go to the band of enchanted chain. She takes in the sight of his bound wrists and tries to tug it off.

“Taking him south with me. I made a promise I'm already starting to regret to a sorceress that would have my head if I don't return with the star.” He says, first to the girl as matter of fact as usual before he turns his focus somewhat embarrassedly about the whole situation, before offering. “Nothing personal, I was looking for a diamond or a rock. I certainly wasn't expecting a man."

“And, having found a man, you have to drag him into your foolishness? And for what?” Geralt doesn't answer as he ties the other end of the silver chain to his wrist, and it magically binds around it, securing that ten star won't drag far from him. “Oh, I see.” The other says, narrowing his eyes at the magical spun link that now ties them both together, before he's sneering. “Should have figured! A star's heart, I bet your mage friend will enjoy it, maybe you will take a bite of it too, huh? Well, I hope you choke on it!”

“Your heart?” The blonde girl asks, panicked and confused, shooting worried looks to him and accusing ones to Geralt. He much thinks he misses the time things made chance. “No, he can't! Please, sir, you can't!”

What the hell does his heart even have to do with anything, a lost Geralt wonders. Yennefer better pay him for this. Pale hands hold onto the girl's shoulders comfortingly and pull her against his side, but even curled against the man-star, her worry doesn't seem to waver, nor does the anger to the blue eyes of the one holding her.

“Listen, I want you to know, that whoever you are, and whatever you intend with me, I won't give you no aid of any kind, nor assist you, and I will do 

whatever is in my power to frustrate your plans, and your mage's by the matter!”

There's a heavy silence then, and the whole atmosphere is rather tense.

“Can you walk?”

“No. My leg is broken.” He enunciates it slowly, jingling the chain pointedly by the side of the clearly broken leg. “Are you deaf, as well as stupid?”

Geralt closes his eyes and takes a deep intake of air, as if that could give him any more patience than the little he already doesn't have. Roach whinnies by his side, shaking her head, and he cracks golden eyes open only to glare at the mare. At least one of them is having fun. Or maybe it's just her being happy that she will not be ridden back to Wall to try and find an in that will take the three of them. Either way he shoves her head away gently, and reaches for his bedroll.

“Does your kind sleep?” 

The star sputters in offense, throwing his head to the side to glance at the blonde girl sat by him, frown still in place even if she smiles ever so slightly as he shakes his head to her and mutters something about a dickehead and being able to believe, before turning to him with an offended glare.

“Of course, but not at night.” He finally manages, and it's the same time of 'are you dumb?' he and the child have been using so far and Geralt's good will is wearing thinner than it already is. He raises a pale hand to gesture to the night sky above, to prove a point. “At night, we shine.”

“Well, I can't think of anything else to do. I'll sleep. It's been a long week. You should try to sleep, too. We've got a long way to go.”

The star scoffs again and the girl seems about ready to argue, but exhaustion is etched at her face, and when he builds a small fire from the few not burnt twigs he could find, he can hear the man talk her into laying back nearest to the fire, that they'll figure out things in the morning, settling by her side reassuringly and doing his best to keep the chain out of her worried gaze.

Through the silence of the night, he can hear the silver chain forged with Yennefer's magic being tugged at fruitlessly as the man settles on the ground and the girl near him. It doesn't take long for the child's breath to fall into a quiet, gentle pattern that can only mean she's fallen asleep, but Geralt falls asleep without hearing the star do the same.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oy, I can’t walk far on this leg.”  
> “I’ve made you a splint and a crutch.”  
> “You wrapped an old shirt on my leg and gave me a stick.”

Geralt could not for the life of him figure out if all stars were supposed to be this insufferable, mud-throwing, hissing dirty mouthed creatures that just so happened to look pretty only when hanging in the sky, when they were thousands of miles away, a safe distance from mud and from his face (and Roach) or if he had lucked out with his find. He doesn't have one word to give him that doesn't come heavy with cursing and insults after, he only glares or scoffs at him and whenever Geralt so much as steps near his personal space he bares his teeth as if to remind him how he almost lost a chunk of his sword arm. 

Yet, he finds that he's all soft spoken and reassuring words to the girl — Fiona, he called her — and smiles too, smiles that don't match at all with the 'I'll bite your balls out, try me' look he had received over breakfast when trying to hand him a loaf of old bread. He has the nerve to _take_ the piece of bread from him, only to look at it confusedly, nip the old crust lightly, and twist his face in distaste and offer a hungry Cirilla the piece, which she takes eagerly.

He considers strangling the man then, but he has self control, Vesemir taught him self-control, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath from time to time and almost achieve inner peace while at it.

Birdsong fills the morning as the sun creeps higher in the sky and Geralt watches the horizon, a falcon floats above and he can hear the distinct sounds of fleeing wild creatures from the loud sounds from the star’s struggling along on a makeshift crutch, grumbling loudly and pointedly all the while. Geralt grants himself a bit of self care, ignoring him from up Roach’s back.

“How much longer are we supposed to follow you?” Comes yet another annoyed whine from behind him, along with a tugging of the enchanted chain to make sure he's paying attention. “Oy, I can’t walk far on this leg.”

“I’ve made you a splint and a crutch.”

That seemed do nothing to sway him.

“You wrapped an old shirt on my leg and gave me a stick.”

He sighed deeply, and hear the soft sound of giggles he's quickly chalking up to the one noise the star's child is willing to do when she is not arguing with him as if he's not twice her size and very much clearly capable of murder, if that wasn't plenty clear yet.

“We’ll get you to a proper doctor at the next town.”

“Next town?!” He squeaks out indignantly, and Geralt feels his arm be yanked again through the chain, this time with almost strength enough to strain his muscles, and he turns to glare at the star, whose chin is high and eyes are defiant. To be honest, he looks like he’s testing his good leg’s strength in case he wanted to try and aim to swing a good hit at his head. “At least let me ride the horse until then! this stick won’t carry me far!”

“Don’t touch Roach.”

“I _will_ throw myself to the ground and you _will_ have to drag me all the way then, and I’ll not make it easy and you _will_ have to explain to your sorceress friend why I’m all tattered up and useless.”

“I’m sure a dead star is still a star.”

“You’re not killing him!” Fiona adds herself to the conversation and Geralt groans, closing his eyes miserably.

“Of course, he’s not! I would kill him first!”

“Would you, really?” Geralt asks, dryly but mildly amused nevertheless, as he fixes a stare down at him.

“Would you like to risk it?” The man says, leaning forward with a charming smile and batting his eyelashes.

He had not. Wanted to risk it. Not now that Geralt finally realised how deep his eyes were, like lakes untouched by men or the skies at dusk, when the stars start to show themselves to human eyes. If he looked long enough, he could see there was a thin outtrim of silverish grey around his pupil that seemed to spread through the blue like small rivers of silver, like the glow of a star breaking the sky. He blinks once more and Geralt finds himself growling softly when pale eyelids shield the sight from him, even if it’s for a second, only relaxing when eyelashes flutter up, and his eyes are back into view. It’s too mesmerizing and he wonders for a moment how magical can a star’s eyes be. Is that what yennefer is looking for? He doesn’t want her to have it. He wants to look at them forever.

He does not realise he’s leaning closer to the man until amusement flashes through the star’s eyes a beat before Geralt is slipping from roach’s back in attempts to follow his retreating figure, falling face-first onto the ground.

A booming, joyous laughter fills the air, and he glares up to the sky as he bends over his stick to delight himself at the outcome of his little trick. Against the sun’s light, his showy clothes glimmer slightly and he seems to reflect it with his joy as he turns to a snickering FIona, hands pressed against her lips as she looks up from the spot where Geralt has crashed against the ground to the delighted star, and lets her laughter run free. It seems to make the star thrice as happy, but it only makes Geralt twice as grumpy.

“Quiet.” He brings a hand up, still laid to the ground to command them into silence, the star opens his mouth, either to say something snarky or to rub his small victory on his face with the sort of pride only he could muster. “Listen.” Geralt presses once again, more strict than annoyed this time, which seems to get them to comply reluctantly.

The distant roaring of a lion-like beast shakes the earth, followed by the valiant whining of a horse.

“That’s coming from up ahead.” The star said, as Geralt jumps up to his feet and pulls Roach along with hurried steps. “Ow! Wait for me, the chain’s not that long.”

They move forward to a meadow between two banks of trees. A giant beast with the body of a lion, bat wings and a scorpion tails attacks a white horse viciously. It’s not hard to miss the horse sports a long, ivory horn jutting from the centre of its forehead. Geralt is not sure he’s cursing this profusely because _this_ is a bloody _unicorn_ or because _that_ over there is a _fucking manticore_. Maybe it’s just because when he is almost done processing the whole stupid, gigantic, cosmic joke his life is right now, the other cosmic entity shakes him by the arm with enough energy to get Roach to try and kick him.

“Do something!” Demands the 5’9 little shit that he regrets so fucking much that he promised Yennefer he would find and bring back. “Aren’t you all muscle and no brain? Use them, for Melitele’s sake. The unicorn is hurt, that beast is going to kill him!”

“And let him kill me, too?” He grumbles, but he’s already reaching for

“Oh, I promise I’ll try to spare you a few tears.” He says, rolling his eyes dramatically before he shoves his shoulder in just the right way to get Geralt to stumble towards the confrontation. “You’re a witcher! I’m asking you to fight a monster, that’s the sort of thing you do!” With that, he throws the stick away from him, ignoring how Fiona squawked indignantly, diving behind it immediately before he pulled the silver sword he had fastened to Roach’s saddle from it’s spot and shove it to his hand. “So you go there and you do your witchering!”

There was a beat of hesitation, white eyebrows furrowing as he stared at the star as if he had grown a second head, only to wrap his fingers around the hilt of his own sword when thee smaller man shook it towards his hands a little more fervently.

“Stay here.”

The stars huffs and waits for Geralt to turn to fight the manticore before shuffling towards the unicorn on the other side.  
  


┈━═☆

“My stomach hurts.” Cirilla groans miserably before tucking against him, much like they’ve done the past five days before the ever gracious witcher man decided to barge into their lives, chain him and drag him all the way to who knows where for a sorceress.

“What’s wrong with you?” He asks gently, running a hand over her knotted platinum hair soothingly, shifting slightly to better accommodate her head over his good leg while having his other leg wrapped around the wounded magical creature by it. “Are you sick?”

The manticore gives another thunderous roar and he, Ciri, Roach and the unicorn at his side glance towards where Geralt still fights the thing. He seems to have already crippled one of the wings, but the beast refuses to fall, stretching a fight he absorbs eagerly into his memories to sing his tales up to his siblings, if ever he decided (or survived) to return home.

“No, I’m just hungry.” She murmurs, watching in quiet fascination as Geralt flips his sword skillfully and thrusts it through the poisonous tip of the beast’s tail, much to it’s displeasure. Her brows furrowed for a moment before she looks up at him. “Aren’t you hungry?”

Jaskier smiles kindly down at her and shakes his head.

“We stars eat only darkness, and we drink only light, so I'm not hungry.”

Of course, there’s slightly more of a reason for this than what he was willing to share; he ought to keep any human food from his lips if he knew what was better for him.

“So why did you fall?” She asks what she had not built the courage to during all the while, “Did you trip over something?”

“Stars don’t just _trip over_ the sky.”

The thing was: he did trip over.

Jaskier hadn’t meant to fall, he had just… Been looking too closely. Leaned over slightly.

Stars were so boring, they were all but eternal and usually unchanging. 

Cirilla of Cintra was born months after the disastrous engagement of her parents, and she had been so bright he could not help but to coo at her, along with his siblings, marvelled at the great destiny such a small being was burdened with. Julin, for he was Julian over the starred camps of the sky, had been so delighted by her first cry, by the first sight, that she had granted her his brightest glow, a vow of his protection and favour that would bode well over her fate. As she grew, the interest died down, and his siblings averted their eyes to more interesting events, to return upon her when the greatness caught up to her years, but Julian does not. He watches over her, and keeps the glow he granted upon her at birth during all the years the girl lives through.

The little princess had been dwelling on peace for a long time, when for both his horror and her own, she was been thrown into a stellar nebula of her own. He watched Nilfgaard march and his siblings inched closer. He saw her grandfather fall and the stars focused more on the scene. He saw Cintra fall, her people be slayed, Mousesack fall, her grandmother leap from the window, the soldier who guarded her be murdered, the scream that left her rip stones and ground. 

He needed to help. He couldn’t. his siblings were there, muttering in compassion, holding onto one another. It was dangerous for a star to fall, they all knew the stories.

Besides, that suffering, was what it would take a star, he knew, a great one. Maybe a sun. As the space dust, hydrogen, helium, and plasma swirls around inside the nebulae, they begin to stick together and form into large blobs. When those campacted masses got too big, she’d collapse and pull the dust close to her hot center, to the thing humans called a heart. It would happen over and over again, until her heart became a star and she would glow with the greatness she’d achieve then.

But she was alone. And she was suffering.

He couldn’t leave her alone.

“Then why did you?”

“I fell for someone who is important to me.”

So he had leaned closer to watch, closer and closer, bit by bit until all the others were paying no mind to what he was doing, too focused on Cirilla’s travels further and further from home, with no hope of safety. Closer to the edge. He could very well never come bak from this, Julian reminded himself, but he couldn’t leave his child alone, not after watching her grow, not now she needed him the most. He looked behind himself, over his shoulder, to the sky and the others stars, the millennial bore that was the everlasting glow. He had spent a century sheltered here, singing songs to the black nothingness in between his sisters and brothers where the planets roamed, but down there, there was a girl who had led a sheltered life and now had nothing at all, no one at all. So he slipped.

He had not expected that his siblings would try and reach for him, their united voices calling for his name.

He had not expect it to burn.

He hadn’t expect it to hurt.

He had screamed all his fall, as the glow of his being died down under his terror and pain, as his family grew more and more distant and the comforting vastness of the universe could no longer shelter him.

His siblings looked much prettier from afar, he had thought, before hitting the ground.

Jaskier is snapped from his thoughts by Roach’s whinny of recognition and he looks up to see the brute of a man that had left _him chained to a mare_ walk closer, covered in black blood and looking like he had crawled from hell.

“He lives!” Jaskier calls, with a delighted laugh, deciding not to hold onto the chain matter for now, because he did save the unicorn he asked him to. ‘Fiona’ shifts, sitting up promptly as the witcher approaches them, only to glare at him as she walks around the bunch of them to pet his mare and reach for some other sort of disgusting vial. “Are you alright?” He calls, but he only give another ‘hmm’ that sounds like ‘shut the fuck up’, so he turns to the unicorn instead. “How about you, old fellow?”

The unicorn in question snorts before throwing his head to the side to whinnie in the dramatic manner Jaskier thinks only kindred souls like himself and this magnificent creature, apparently, can be. It makes him smile, and he runs his fingers over his white coat, pretending the shine of its body it’s also his, and daring to hope he can one day shine like a star should once again, when Cirilla is safe and this is all done with.

“Poor thing.” Cirilla says sympathetically from his other side, reaching to ru her hand down it’s neck and the unicorn lets her. Surely enough, a fire lights up her eyes, with the fierce protectiveness he has so often seen take hold of her these last few days and she turns to Geralt. “We can’t leave it.”

“His wounds aren’t too deep.” Is what he replies, and Jaskier’s brows almost touch his hairline when he decides to actually use words instead of just humming. “You could probably ride him. That would speed us up, and help the star’s leg heal more quickly.”

To that Jaskier cries out “ _The star_ has a name!” at the same times Cirilla yelps a childishly delighted “Ride an unicorn?” that has both witcher and star sigh in a knowing way.

“Only if he is alright with it.” Jaskier says, looking at the magical creature by his side as it stands up, throwing it’s pure white mane back harrumphing and stamping it’s hoof. “Well, I guess that’s a yes."

┈━═☆

“

How did you know?”

“Uh?” The star asks, shaking his head half in a sleep daze, straightening his back from where he had been all but falling from the back of the unicorn and tightening his hold around his sleeping charge. “Sorry, what?”

“How did you know?” He repeats, already feeling the build of annoyance that interacting with him evokes on himself, but reigning Roach in, so both her and the unicorn are side by side as he turns to look at the star, frowning at him as if he can’t fathom what the hell he is talking about. “That I was a witcher?”

“Uh… Was I supposed not to?” He says, making a confused sound before gesturing at him as if Geralt was his own explanation, and Geralt finds himself looking at his black leathered armour for any showy signs that could denounce him as a witcher to a _bloody star_. “ You’re not really being subtle here, darling. I mean... White hair, big old-loner, two very, very scary-looking swords? Silver for monsters, iron for men, isn’t that what you lot say?”

“Two weeks on a crater teach you that much about witchers?”

“A hundred years on the sky did.” He said, perking up even letting out a voice almost laced with amusement, as he tilted his head up, towards the darkening sky. “We watch, you know?”

Geralt frowns minutely.

“What for?”

“For the tales, of course.” He said, proudly, breaking into melodic sound in words that didn’t belong to any language she knew of. “They make for great songs, good entertainment. Yours isn’t a merry one.”

“You know me?” He asks, arching a pale brow.

“By something that’s not your name, I’m afraid.” The star says and suddenly, the expanding personality shrinks into him, and he won’t meet his eyes. It’s only the heavy silence that wears down on him until he lets out a low grumble. “I would rather insult you with things that I know you are from experience than call you Butcher, if I’m not to be given your name.”

 _Oh_. So that’s what he’s known for, even as far away as in the skies.

He snaps his eyes away from the star and stare the road ahead.

“It’s Geralt.”

Another beat of silence hangs above them.

“Where are you from, Geralt?”

“Rivia.”

“Huh. Geralt of Rivia. It sounds like a name that is destiny-bound.”

“It’s just a name.”

“It’s never just a name.”

“And what’s yours?”

“Well, it depends.”

“Hm?”

“To the ones that map the sky I’m Viscount, from the Pankratz Constellation. You see there? That’s the one. To my siblings, I’m Julian. But the people from Lettenhove have another name for me. I like it better than all others.”

The Viscount of Pankratz stars or whatever the fuck he liked to be called turned to him, and through the dark of the night he can see the man smile, so white and bright it could light the path around them and he makes a point to not look at his eyes, just in case he wanted to try that trick again.

“What’s it?”

“The Jaskier star.”

“So, you’re Jaskier?”

“It has a good ring to it, doesn’t it? Jaskier of Lettenhove?”

“I thought you were a Pankratz. And a Viscount.”

“Well, we’ll figure something out.”


End file.
